The present invention relates to a telecommunications system. More specifically, the invention provides for a method and apparatus for real-time monitoring of ongoing party line telephone conversations to determine the topic of the conversation and for providing access into the telephone conversation for additional callers that are interested in the topic being discussed.
Currently, it is possible to provide a service for permitting a caller to access an on-going telephone conversation concerning a topic of interest by having the caller dial a specific telephone number, such as by dialing a 900 toll service. Typically, a specific 900 telephone number relates to a single conversation topic. Accordingly, a caller manually dials the 900 telephone number that corresponds to the telephone conversation topic of interest and the caller is connected to the call and is able to participate in that particular conversation. However, this methodology suffers several drawbacks. These drawbacks include the requirement to pre-define, i.e., before the conversation is established, the topic of the conversation and that once defined, the topic cannot be modified after establishment of the initial telephone call. An additional drawback is that a separate 900 telephone number must be dedicated to each different telephone conversation.
It is also known how to establish a service where a caller who is interested in participating in an on-going telephone conversation is able to dial into a telephone network and select a particular conversation to participate in from a topic listing of on-going telephone conversations. However, a drawback with this system, as with the previous method addressed above, is that the topic listing for each telephone conversation must also be pre-defined and stored in a database. A caller who wants to know of on-going conversations that they may want to participate in reviews the database listing of topics of on-going conversations and selects a conversation from this topic listing. However, in natural conversation during a telephone call the topic of the phone call may change considerably depending on the desires of the participants. The currently known system for defining topics for telephone conversations does not allow for the topical description of the on-going conversation to change in response to the actual subject matter that is being discussed at any particular time during the phone conference. Thus, the defined topic for the telephone call may become inaccurate with time and thus a caller who may desire to participate in the call will not be able to accurately determine the topic of the call prior to joining the call.
Therefore, it would be desirable to provide a telecommunications system that is able to monitor on-going telephone calls to accurately determine the subject matter of the conversations during the entire course of the calls and, based on this monitoring, assign a topic to each call. Callers that desire to participate in an on-going telephone call concerning a topic of interest could review the topics of on-going calls and be bridged into a telephone call that was discussing the topic of interest.
The drawbacks in the prior art are overcome by the present invention for an automated telephone call topic designation system. In accordance with the present invention, a plurality of keywords are stored in a database where each keyword is associated with at least one topic designation. The system monitors the conversation of an on-going telephone call by utilizing voice recognition software resident in a network to detect whether any of the keywords are used in the conversation. Detected keywords are used to designate a topic for the conversation. A third party desiring to join an on-going conversation of interest reviews the topics of the on-going conversations and is bridged into a conversation of interest.
In this manner, the present invention provides for designating topics to ongoing phone calls based upon monitoring the conversations of the phone calls and for bridging a third party into a conversation of interest.